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Valve Starts Publishing Packages For Its Own Linux Distribution

Posted by timothy on from the ready-for-the-console-at-least dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In preparation for the "Steam Box" game console that will make necessary their own Linux-based software platform, Valve developers have started publishing Debian packages for their platform which looks like their first-generation operating system will be derived from Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. So far the packages being published include a new "Plymouth" boot splash screen as the operating system loads, a Steam desktop wallpaper, auto-updating system scripts, and experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers."

7 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Year of the Linux Desktop? by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It looks like this might finally be the year. With Windows 8 throwing a lot of users away with a bad interface and a marketplace lock-in, The timing is pretty good. A lot of people always claimed that games were the only reason they were still on Windows.

    1. Re:Year of the Linux Desktop? by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe not the year of the Linux desktop, but instead the year of the Linux set-top-box.

    2. Re:Year of the Linux Desktop? by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It looks like this might finally be the year.

      That's almost comical because we've been asking ourselves that question for so many years. Valve has got a good thing going, but until we start seeing mainstream games on Steam being released with Linux binaries, all Valve is doing is prolonging another inevitable Fail.

      Don't get me wrong, I applaud Valve for what they are doing. It takes a lot of balls to take on the Console/Windows gaming behemoth and I think it takes keen insight to recognize the death of your product coming down the road because your main support platform went full-retard. BUT it doesn't feel good to sit at a Linux Steam console staring at all the cool games for Windows, and 90% of Linux selections are stuff repackaged from the Humble Bundles. When a new game comes out, the people on Linux Steam want to be able to play it too. When the industry gets to that point, the everyday Linux desktop headaches may offset the Windows ones enough to make make "YotLD" viable.

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    3. Re:Year of the Linux Desktop? by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Its an extremely limited technical market. One that does not strongly overlap with programming. Open source OS's exist because programmers use OS's. Open source development environments exist because developers use IDE's. Open source games exist because developers play games.

      Open source solutions will exist as soon as YOU and your fellow architects/engineers make them, that is no different than any other field.

  2. Re:please, whynot a simple debian base, *buntu fub by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, I'd like the /. feedback on this... haven't all real linux users abandoned *buntu since a year or 2 back?

    Well, first of all, they're going to derive their distro from Ubuntu. This is sort of like Mint which I, a former Ubuntu user, currently run. I would guess that much of what has frustrated Ubuntu users will be excluded and replaced with custom, in-house frustrations. Secondly, "all real linux users"? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. A Linux user, by definition, is a person who uses Linux. Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. Therefore, a person who uses Ubuntu is also a Linux user. There is no place for "real" qualifiers to enter this any more than someone can be a "real bachelor" or a "true Scotsman". To count oneself a real Linux user and to deny that to others who happen to use a distro one doesn't like is just self-indulgent.

  3. Re:Wish I had a mod point for you. by TrancePhreak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    based on what I'm reading about windows 8.

    Which is the real problem. Most people I've seen who say it's bad haven't even used it. In the future, it should become the de-facto Windows gaming iteration, as they cleaned up and refined the graphics systems.

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  4. Re:Maybe by Microlith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Try to install a new X server from source, or try to update some relevant library (to be able to use shiny new application with obscure or alpha dependencies), and you will see the problem that I are talking about.

    Wait, when is a user of Ubuntu, particularly a non-technical user, ever going to do that?

    The kernel Linux is stable, but the software needed to make the desktop work are incomplete, inconsistent or simply broken.

    Your arguments are more incomplete, inconsistent, or simply broken than the platform you're trying to attack is.